[Lichtbringer]

Hi, I am currently looking to find a way for my character (rigger) to provide more heavy fire support for the rest of the team. I am very new to SR, but from what I have learned so far it seems to be a quite normal occurrence for our team to end up being chased by a heavy armored and armed helicopter. Currently my 2068 is armed with a hidden weapon turret based light machine gun, which seems a bit underpowered against such threads. I already have successfully acquired a light autocannon to replace it (still has to be installed), but I was thinking about getting something with even more of a punch for those “Oh crap, oh crap we all gonna die”-moments. So far I have considered several ideas:

Since I already have a medium sized drone platform, I could use it to launch Heimdall drones at whatever might be chasing us. (If you attack something with a Heimdall, how to you roll it? My first instinct would be to handle it like ramming another car, but since it are basically missles, does it fall under heavy weapon? Would it make sense to add cloacking mods (signature, chameleon paint)? I assume to take any defensive actions the attacked would have to notice them in the first place. If they can avoid detection I might get a “free shot”.  Of course my (limited) understanding of how this stuff works might be totally wrong.

My second idea was a bit more ambitious, but also comes with more problems. The basic idea is to use one of this lighter-than-air drones to create a flying weapon platform, floating near the target area. Depending on the size of it, it could be outfitted with a platform to launch several Heimdall and other drones, put a long range rifle on it and maybe some surveillance equipment...but even if all those things would fit into it, it would be rather slow, very vulnerable and not something easy to hide. Normal drones I can store and launch from my car, but that thing would be way too big. Getting it into (and out of) the target area would be a challenge in itself, and even if successful, once spotted it can easily be traced.

The third one was to build a lot of disguised drone launchers and put heimdalls with increased range into them. Put them in standby mode and hide them all over the city. The idea was to always be in range of at least one of them, so you could call in drone/missle support..but the amount of launchers and drones one would need to cover such a large area..it just would be too high I fear.

Those were all ideas I had so far. Is any of them salvageable? Room for improvement? I am also open to complete new ones.

[UmaroVI]

So far as heavy guns go, the big money is the miniguns from Arsenal. There's a 5000Y light minigun and a 20000Y heavy minigun; they are incredibly nasty vehicular weapons and honestly there's little reason to use anything else, except maybe the watergun for nonlethal crowd control.

For flying support, my recommendation is the Lone Star Strato-9 from This Old Drone. The reason is that it is extremely cheap, flies, and has an integral reinforced weapon mount. You can most certainly make better drones, but they are absolutely amazing bang::buck. A small fleet of Strato-9s with light miniguns and maybe some mild upgrades will run you 10000Y each, and can flatten far more expensive things.

Lastly, I should mention the land-bound but extremely nasty Wuxing Hussar from WAR!. It's hard to find at 32F, but only 7500Y base (although you'll likely end up having to pay more to actually get one) and it has 18 armor, making it tougher than most vehicles while still being a drone.

If your problems are specifically vehicles, the best solution IMO is a heavy minigun with Antitank rounds. That's 11P/-12, full wide for -14 to dodge, and you can reliably destroy helicopters. It also has a 2.4k range.

[Lichtbringer]

Thanks for the reply. The autocannon mention in my post is the "light minigun". The heavy is currently to hard for my character to obtain.

I already have a Nissan Roto-Drone with an AK-98/grenade launcher. Is there any point in switching to the Strato? Can I fix a heavier gun to the Roto-Drone? (I now would have a light machine gun left over). Though my I was more thinking about a "sniper in the sky" (or far away) combined with stealth tech.

The Hussar would be impossible for me to buy with 32F (around 15F is the max at the moment for most things, and even then it can take weeks or month until it does arrives).

[UmaroVI]

The Strato-9 is good cause it's cheap - if you already have a drone, don't switch, just buy another drone.

[squee_nabob]

The water cannon is also OR 2 and injuries resulting from it do not even rate a mention on the Matrix news updates, if you want something discrete.

The GE Autocannons make excellent anti-everything weapons. They can even cause spirits to have a bad day.

[Medicineman]

A Gauss Rifle might be the right Toy.
very good against Armored Targets

HougH!
Medicineman

[Greenknight001]

For my money, the best weapon for raw firepower is the GE Vindicator minigun.  Mod'ed for recoil, this thing can fire a full 15 round burst with no recoil if mounted on a vehicle with a body of 8 or more (such as a Dodge Guardian) or minimal recoil if used with a gyro harness.  Best yet, since it is considered a light machinegun, it can be mounted on standard weapon mounts.

A full, narrow burst from this thing does a base 20P damage (6P + 14 from 15 round burst)... enough to cut most vehicles in two... add AV ammo (-4/-6 AP) to be really abusive.

GE Vindicator Minigun
   6P  -1 AP   FA*   -0- RC (+6 RC with mods)   50c or belt   16F   5,500 NuYen (7,050 with mods)

Mods:

• Gas vent-3    (+3 RC, 400 NuYen) (barrel)
• Electronic firing  (+1 RC, 1,000 NuYen)
• Auto-adjusting weight  (+2 RC, 150 NuYen)

[Mäx]

A full, narrow burst from this thing does a base 20P damage (6P + 14 from 15 round burst)... enough to cut most vehicles in two

Not really, the bonus damage from burst doesn't count for penetrating armor.
So it's only 6+net hits versus targets armor-AP.

[Xzylvador]

^ That, so often overlooked. Such an important little rule hidden behind an asterisk in a table...

... I'll sell my left kidney and half a lung to anyone who can tell me how to get a Gauss Rifle at chargen.
10 damage minumum (9DV+1NetHit) vs Half armor and then -4 armor. That will blow up anything but the most heavily armored vehicles and force 13+ spirits.

The Vindicator still is good for blowing the crap out of anything that isn't heavily armored though; narrow burst will take out any living thing and its attack can be spread to engage lots of different targets too. But if mounting it on a drone, don't bother on all those recoil compensation mods, drones don't get the recoil anyway!

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Hrm.  I'm ... not finding any reference for how the gauss rifle ignores 1/2 a character's armor even before the AP rating is taken into account.  I'm not finding it in SR4A's talk about heavy weapons; not finding it in Arsenal at all, either.  Help?

[UmaroVI]

Arsenal errata.

[Falconer]

I'd suggest the multi-launch drone rack from arsenal added to your vehicle.

Toss in some heimdall's like you suggested.   Also great because you can toss in a lot of other utility drones.  With the missile scatter rules... the heimdall drone is one of the few missiles which can actually use an anti-vehicle warhead effectively since you literally kamikaze it directly into the target.

If push comes to shove, you can also duct tape grenades to bust-a-moves... and load em in as well ;P.


Who doesn't want to play robotech... where you walk up in your big robot... open the missile hatch cover and spew out 20 missiles at once!.   With SR4 scatter, it's about the only way to actually hit something.

As for heavier weapons.  I kinda like the lasers in Arsenal.  They have AP-half... and firing off vehicle power gives plenty of grid.   Use a called shot for damage if need be.  Also they don't leave shell casings behind  (and lets face it... why spend money on ammo when you can spend it on more toys... uhh drones!).


There's also what I like to call the A-10 of attack drones in the Runner's Black Book.
The Ares Air Supply... (IMHO far superior to the Kull in arsenal).   Internal cargo built in (bomb bay?!)
Large drone... ***BODY 6***.   Repeat ***BODY 6***.  (space for 6 modification slots... plus max armor on drones is 3x their body score!).

Here's why I call it the A-10 of drones... that means for 1 point you can fit on Armor 18!! (on a drone with full VtoL performance!  VSTOL-2 built-in!).
2 points, you can fit on a reinforced weapon mount for something like a HMG.  And you still got 3 more
All for a bargain basement $8500! and a mere 8R availability!  As obsolescent military tech... it's effectively a rating 4 device same as other 'security' drones.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Arsenal errata.

Ah, to make it identical with the other railguns.  Thank you.

[JustADude]

... I'll sell my left kidney and half a lung to anyone who can tell me how to get a Gauss Rifle at chargen.
10 damage minumum (9DV+1NetHit) vs Half armor and then -4 armor. That will blow up anything but the most heavily armored vehicles and force 13+ spirits.

Not quite a Gauss Rifle, but you could always use an Ares MP Laser 3 (Arsenal, p41), which does 7DV, AP -half and uses Sporting Rifle ranges. Point of Restricted Gear for the gun, then another point of Restricted Gear for a Power Backpack, which will get you 40 shots (80 power, 2 per shot) before you have to recharge the thing. Once you're out of C.Gen, add on a couple Satchel Power Packs, which are good for 30 power each, as backup, since the batteries only recover 1 point per 30m of charging.

As a nice bonus, you can use the same Peak-Discharge Batteries to power an Ares Heavy MP Laser, which does 9DV, AP -half, and uses Sniper Rifle ranges. The Heavy MP has to be mounted, though, either with a Tripod or Gyro-mount. Only get 20 shots, though, since it uses 4 power per shot.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Same peak-discharge batteries run the gauss rifle...